The day began, as it always did, with an assault. It was not yet eight in the morning, and the Manila sun was already a malevolent, white-hot fist punching down from a bleached-out sky. Inside the jeepney, a shuddering metal box painted with a riot of saints and slogans, the heat was a living thing. It was thick with the tang of diesel fumes, the cloying sweetness of the woman next to her peeling an orange, and the damp, sour scent of too many bodies pressed together. The roar of the engine was a constant, bone-jarring groan, punctuated by the rhythmic shouts of the conductor hanging precariously from the back—"Bayad po! Bayad po!"—his voice swallowed by the cacophony of the city.
Yanna Rivera sat crammed onto a sticky vinyl bench, her spine rigid, her bag held tight on her lap like a shield. She was an island of stillness in a sea of motion. Other passengers fanned themselves with folded newspapers or stared out with the dull, heat-stunned resignation of long practice. Yanna stared at the back of the driver's head, but she did not see it. In her mind, she was miles away, in the cool, logical world of Max Weber's tripartite classification of authority. Charismatic, traditional, rational-legal. The words were a mantra, a cooling balm on her frazzled nerves. She mentally recited the key arguments from last night's reading, building the structure of a potential essay exam question, reinforcing the fortress of her intellect against the relentless sensory siege of her reality. This, her academic performance, was the one thing of value she possessed. It was hers alone, forged in sleepless nights and paid for in frayed nerve endings. A 1.25 GWA. Nearly a perfect score. It was the only currency she had that felt real.
The jeepney lurched, throwing her against the woman with the orange. "Sorry," Yanna mumbled, her eyes not leaving the driver's headrest. The woman grunted, unconcerned. Yanna's hand, hidden inside her bag, slipped into the small side pocket of her wallet. Her fingers, calloused at the tips from endless writing, found the familiar crisp and crumpled textures of her week's budget. She did not need to look. She knew it by feel. Three folded one-hundred-peso bills, a twenty, and a handful of coins that amounted to seventeen pesos and fifty centavos. Three hundred and thirty-seven pesos and fifty centavos to last until her next shift at the campus canteen on Friday.
It was a delicate, terrifying ballet of numbers that played constantly in the back of her mind. Seventy-eight for the round trip fare. Twenty-five for a half-order of rice and a splash of adobo sauce at the cheap carinderia outside the gates—she couldn't afford the canteen prices, not for her own meals. Fifty pesos for the printing and photocopying of two required case studies. That left one hundred eighty-four and change. An emergency fund. A laughably small buffer against a world that was all emergencies. This was her life: isang kahig, isang tuka. One scratch, one peck. The endless, grinding labor of a chicken scratching for a single grain of rice. The phrase was her mother's, and Yanna hated it. She hated its folksy acceptance, its shrugged-shoulders poetry for what was, in plain terms, a slow and methodical suffocation. She was not a chicken scratching in the dirt. She was a scholar. A top performer. But the numbers didn't care about her grades. The numbers only cared about the scratching. A bead of sweat traced a path down her temple, and she resolutely pushed the thought away, returning to Weber. Rational-legal authority. Legitimacy based on a system of rules…
The university library was a different world. It was a temple of silence and blessed, refrigerated air. The chaotic symphony of the city died at its glass doors, replaced by the hushed whisper of turning pages, the gentle beep of the book scanner, and the reverent quiet of shared purpose. Here, Yanna could breathe. The oppression of the heat and the crowds was replaced by the weight of history and knowledge, a pressure she welcomed. She found her usual carrel at the far end of the fourth floor, a small, anonymous space overlooking a quiet jacaranda tree. For three hours, she was magnificent. The anxiety of the jeepney, the gnawing calculations of her budget, they all melted away. She was not Yanna Rivera, the girl with three hundred pesos to her name. She was a mind at work, dissecting political theories, drawing connections, her notes clean and precise, her thoughts crystalline. This was control. This was power.
The illusion was shattered by a simple vibration.
Her cheap phone buzzed against the surface of the carrel. It was a message from her mother. Yanna's stomach tightened into a cold, hard knot even before she read the words. Her mother's texts were an art form of their own, crafted to convey desperation without ever asking directly, a performance of maternal pride that Yanna was expected to see through.
Anak, hope you are studying well. Your sister is so proud of her Ate. Her check-up went okay. The doctor said the new medicine is better, but it is a little bit more… premium. Don't you worry about it. Just focus on your exams. We will manage.
We will manage. The three most terrifying words in her mother's vocabulary. They meant the landlord was asking for rent. They meant the pharmacy wouldn't give them any more credit. They meant the pot of rice was empty. A little bit more premium. That meant hundreds, maybe thousands, of pesos they did not have. The cool, controlled world of her studies evaporated, and she was back in the suffocating heat of the jeepney, the weight of her family's need pressing down on her chest, stealing the expensive, conditioned air from her lungs.
The characters on her textbook page swam before her eyes. Rational-legal. Bureaucratic. Impersonal. The words were meaningless now, abstract nonsense from a world that didn't have to choose between medicine and rent. A tremor started in her hands, a low, buzzing hum of pure, helpless adrenaline. Her breath came too fast. She could feel the stares of the other students, even though no one was looking at her. She felt exposed, her poverty a stench they could all smell.
Get up. Move. Now.
She slid out of the carrel, her movements jerky. She walked, not towards the exit, but deeper into the library, towards the section marked 'Southeast Asian History: Post-Colonial Archives.' It was a dusty, forgotten corner where the lights were dimmer and the air was thick with the scent of decaying paper and old binding glue. She slipped between two towering shelves, entering a narrow canyon of books. The silence here was different. It was a dead, tomb-like quiet. She was alone.
She leaned her forehead against the cool, rough spine of a book, breathing in, out, in, out. But the frantic bird in her chest wouldn't slow down. The shame was a thick, hot sludge in her gut. Shame for her helplessness. Shame for her resentment. Shame that her first thought wasn't love for her sister, but the cold, hard math of how she could possibly find the money.
Her hands were shaking more now. She looked down at them, at the clean, short nails she kept for her canteen job. On her left hand, the index and middle fingers were different. She had filed them yesterday evening with a stolen nail file, not to a point, but to a hard, sharp, beveled edge. It was her secret. Her ritual.
Her gaze fixed on the soft, pale flesh of her right forearm, just below the neatly folded sleeve of her uniform. With a slow, deliberate movement that felt both sacrilegious and holy in this temple of knowledge, she brought her left hand over. Her breathing hitched, a strange mix of terror and anticipation. This was her dark meditation. Her last resort.
She pressed the sharpened edges of her nails into her skin.
At first, there was only pressure. Then, the pressure broke through. Four points of sharp, clean, electric pain bloomed on her arm. It was blinding. It was exquisite. It cut through the roaring static in her head, silencing the panicked voice of the accountant, the guilt-ridden daughter, the failing protector. All of it vanished, burned away by this single, pure sensation. It wasn't about blood; she rarely broke the skin more than a pinprick. It was about focus. It was a pain she controlled. A pain she invited. In a world of chaos she couldn't manage, this one small, intense agony was hers alone. It was an anchor in the storm. She held the pressure, her knuckles white, her jaw clenched, until the frantic bird in her chest stilled, its wings finally folded. A wave of profound, narcotic calm washed over her. She could think again.
She pulled her hand away, hiding her arm under her sleeve before even looking at it. She knew what she would see: four angry red crescents that would fade to a dull ache by evening. She felt no horror. Only a deep, quiet relief. The storm had passed. Now, she just had to deal with the wreckage. Money. She needed money.
"Hiding from Professor Dela Cruz again?"
Yanna jumped, her heart lurching as she spun around. Ria was leaning against the end of the aisle, a concerned frown creasing her brow. She was holding a textbook on macroeconomics, but her focus was entirely on Yanna.
"I saw you practically run out of your carrel. You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Just… a headache," Yanna lied, forcing her face into a neutral expression. It was a weak imitation of the mask she would one day perfect.
Ria didn't buy it, but she was kind enough not to push. They'd been friends since their first year, partners in late-night study sessions and shared instant-noodle dinners. Ria knew the broad strokes of Yanna's life, if not the sharp, painful details.
"Bad news from home?" Ria asked softly.
Yanna just gave a small, tight nod. That was all the confirmation Ria needed. She sighed, her pragmatism clicking into place.
"Okay, look. This might be a sign from the universe," Ria said, pulling a folded flyer from her textbook. She smoothed it out. It was printed on thick, glossy cardstock that felt obscene in this dusty corner of the library. "A friend of my cousin's is a supervisor for a high-end catering agency. They're desperate for warm bodies for a huge event this Saturday. Just one night, Yans. The pay is insane. Like, two weeks of my allowance insane."
She held out the flyer. Yanna stared at the elegant, minimalist font. It radiated wealth. The event was in Bonifacio Global City. BGC. A different planet. A place of glass towers and boutique shops and people who never had to do the kind of math she did every second of every day. A gleaming, black luxury car with tinted windows flashed through her mind—one she'd seen that morning, cutting through the traffic like a shark through grimy water. She had felt a surge of something hot and bitter, a feeling she now recognized as pure, uncut envy.
"Ria, that's BGC," she said, her voice flat. "That's not my world. I'd be like a stray dog at a poodle show."
"Don't be so dramatic. It's a catering gig. You wear a black uniform, you hold a tray, you smile, you don't make eye contact. You'll be part of the scenery. Anonymous."
"They won't hire me," Yanna insisted, shaking her head. The very thought of it made the skin on her marked arm prickle. "I don't… fit."
"They'll hire anyone with a pulse who can balance a tray right now. They're that short-staffed." Ria's voice was pleading now. She took Yanna's hand, her fingers warm and earnest. "Just think about it. The money could fix things. For a while, at least."
The new medicine. A little bit more premium. The words echoed in her head. The ghost of that sharp, grounding pain tingled in her arm, a reminder of what that pressure felt like. Pride was a luxury. A very, very expensive one. But the fear was real, a cold dread of judgment, of being looked at and seen as less.
"Who is it for?" Yanna asked, her voice barely a whisper. "The event?"
Ria glanced back down at the flyer, her expression turning into a mix of awe and mischief. "Look, the client is Navarro Corp. It's for the launch of their new art gallery in BGC. The hostess is the heiress herself, Camille Navarro."
Yanna physically recoiled, pulling her hand from Ria's grasp as if she'd been burned. A chill that had nothing to do with the library's air conditioning snaked down her spine. The name was infamous, a whispered legend on campus and in the society pages. A name synonymous with obscene wealth, ruthless business practices, and a dark, untouchable charisma.
"The Camille Navarro?" Yanna said, the name feeling like ash in her mouth. "No. Absolutely not. I've heard stories about her."
Ria gave a nervous, excited grin, trying to diffuse the sudden tension. "That she eats people like us for breakfast? They're just stories, Yans. Tabloid gossip. You'll be invisible, just another waitress. I promise you won't even have to get near her. So, are you in or not?"
A long, charged silence descended, broken only by the faint hum of the overhead lights. Yanna thought of her mother's text message. She thought of the numbers in her wallet. She felt the dull, phantom throb in her arm, the echo of a pain she understood. A pain that was clean, unlike this messy, humiliating tangle of want and fear.
Ria's voice softened slightly, cutting through Yanna's frantic thoughts.
"Yanna? It's just one night in a world you don't belong in. What are you so afraid of?"